I have a sneaking suspicion Switzerland is out of character, though I had too much fun writing him to bring myself to care.

Also, someone asked where Mr. Puffin has been. The problem is that I have problems figuring out what to do with a puffin that speaks like a Mafia boss. So, he won't show up too often. Sorry.

READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING: When they get together for a world conference, the nations speak in what they refer to as "the world language", which only they can speak. It's not perfect, though. It has no writing system, and greetings and country names default to their official or preferred language. (They have no idea why this is.) This usually only applies to world conferences and if two nations can't speak a common language (which is rare due to how many speak English now), and occasionally if they don't want any humans to understand them.

As a result, I left country names untranslated, though I believe that you can guess who they are. If not, translators exist. Also, if any are wrong, don't hesitate to tell me.


Chapter 7: Conferences

Upon walking into the conference room, Lukas actually gave thought to just going back home.

Switzerland was standing at the head of the table, gun in hand and glaring at England and France, who were frozen in a fighting pose. The Norwegian noticed a suspicious bullet hole in the wall behind the two.

"Both of you will sit on opposite sides of the table and not do anything else for the rest of the conference," the trigger happy nation said. "Understand, England, Frankreich?"

The two nations nodded, immediately sitting down as far away from each other and the Swiss as possible.

Switzerland sighed, strapping his gun back to his back. He turned to the door, finally noticing the two Nordics standing there. "Norwegen, Island. You're here early."

"Dinner took less time than we had expected, Sveits," Lukas replied.

Switzerland nodded. "I already regret it, but there are no assigned seats. I may have to change that, though," he said, glaring at France and England again.

Without another word, Lukas led Eiríkur over to a seat across from France and another woman wearing glasses with blond hair in a braid that was shuffling through some cards. "Ah, Norvège, you are as looking as lovely as ever," France greeted, earning a look from the Norwegian. "Who is that beautiful nation you have brought with you?"

Eiríkur's face was almost comical. Lukas noticed and said, "This is Island, my brother, Frankrike," he hissed. His message was clear: If you do not want to be reminded why I was feared throughout this continent a millennium ago, you will stop flirting with him.

France seemed to have gotten the message, for he hastily turned to the woman next to him, saying, "This is my sister, Monaco."

Monaco looked up from her cards. "Bonjour, Norvège, Islande," she greeted.

"Halló," Eiríkur said as Lukas nodded in greeting.

France made small talk for awhile, Lukas, Eiríkur, and Monaco mostly ignoring him as they waited for the meeting to start.

More nations than Lukas had expected came. Because he was such a nice brother, he either introduced them to him or told him the names of the ones he recognized, depending on how close they chose they decided to sit near them. He also chose to speak Eiríkur in Icelandic, admittedly enjoying France and any other nations that had been around during the Viking Age's panic a bit too much when they thought that they had been speaking in Old Norse before they realized the pronunciation was off. Eiríkur did too- he noticed him hiding several smirks.

Finally, Switzerland deemed that everyone that was coming had showed up. He went to the front of the room and said, "Everyone shut up or I'll have to reload my gun when I'm done."

Lukas mentally noted how effective that threat was. Maybe if he ever had to host one of these ridiculous things he could convince Troll to pay a visit and show himself to everyone. He would remind himself to think of good bribes later.

Switzerland nodded, seemingly pleased, though his face stayed as grumpy as ever. "Thank you. Guten tag, everyone. As you know, someone decided that it would be a good idea to have all of us in the same room and expect no one to get killed. If you are that idiot or know that idiot, tell us so we can kill you."

Lukas thought he saw France and England shift uncomfortably, but couldn't be sure.

After waiting a moment, the neutral nation continued on as if he hadn't spoken. "There are a few rules to remember if you don't want to be on the business end of my rifle. One was no pets, but some can't listen to such a simple thing." Greece, the culprit, just continued sleeping, not paying any attention to Switzerland's glare, the kitten he had brought in mimicking its master.

"A more important one is no brutally murdering each other. The hotel staff will be concerned at the blood. If you wish to kill each other, please take it outside, preferably to a dark alley where no one will find the body when it comes back to life."

Lukas felt Eiríkur poke him with a piece of paper. He took it, seeing that the Icelander had written I give it five minutes before England and France break it.

The Norwegian wrote back, I'll be more specific and say they'll break it when we get around to deciding who's language we will write in. He saw his brother nod out of the corner of his eye before turning back to the Germanic nation.

"No eating during the meeting. There will be plenty of time for that during breaks. And England, offer anyone that inedible slop you call food and you will die an painful death at least three times."

As expected, England didn't exactly like this. "You b**** w*****! My food tastes perfectly fine! None of you have any taste!"

France, America, Australia, and Spain nearly died laughing. A red haired woman he recognized as Ireland took it a step further and said, "Sasana, you have never been able to cook. The only one who comes close to your lack of cooking skills is Scotland, and that's only when he makes haggis or tries to fry everything."

And Timo, Lukas mentally added, shuddering at the memory of the Finn's cooking as Switzerland pointed his gun at the English nation and threatened him with a body full of bullets if he did not sit back down and stop attempting to kill his older sister.

Finally, Switzerland regained control and continued, "Finally, no bringing up any wars, past or present, or any other acts such as that. Because I believe I speak for everyone when I say I do not want to be the cause of another one of those blasted wars."

Well, that killed the mood, Lukas noted, observing how everyone fell silent, refusing to look at anyone else, especially if they had been on a side during that last global war.

After a moment, Switzerland broke the silence. "We'll take a small break now. There are refreshments in the next room. Do not complain if you do not like them and just be glad I bothered to provide any."

Lukas pulled Eiríkur to the next room with him, taking a few treats from the table before sitting at a small table near the wall. The Icelander sat next to him, munching on some chocolate. "I was expecting more violence," he said, almost sounding disappointed.

"It did not last long enough for that," Lukas pointed out, reaching out a hand to steal some of his brother's chocolate. Eiríkur retaliated by taking one of his pastries. "Don't worry. There will be some later."

They sat in silence for a couple minutes until another nation plopped down next to them. "Hey dudes!" America greeted. "So, who are you guys?"

Lukas blinked, sharing a look with his brother, who seemed equally as surprised at the casual greeting from the American. "Er… I'm Iceland, and this is Norway," Eiríkur introduced, speaking in English, mostly so he could finally figure out how well Lukas had taught him.

America's eyes lit up as he smiled. "Cool! You speak English! Anyway, I'm The United States of America, though I just go by America. Or 'Estados Unis' if you're Mexico. Either one is fine. It's really cool to meet you."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, also," Lukas said, deciding that most of the rumors he had heard about the growing nation were true, though the one he had heard from Magnus about how he was secretly in league with Russia to take over the world and kill everyone did not seem to be true, as he expected.

"It was nice meeting you guys, but I have more people to meet. I hope to see you guys again sometime. Later!"

The two brothers stared at the young nation as he departed. "He's weird," Eiríkur said, switching to Norwegian. "How old is he again?"

"At the oldest, I believe a little over 400, though that is only if he had been born when that stupid guy first sailed to North America by being an idiot," Lukas replied. "He could be even younger than that. The United States is a fairly young country, having only been created in I believe 1776."

"Why does he look older than me, then?"

Lukas smirked. "Jealous?"

"I am definitely not."

"And England's food is edible. Lying is bad, Icy."

"Just shut up."

Ten minutes later and relative peace later (other than an argument between England and Ireland), the meeting started back up. Switzerland again stood at the front, looking extremely reluctant as he announced the next order of business. "The language we will use for these meetings will be the world language, obviously. There will be no change, so don't even bother. Unfortunately, that leaves an official written language."

"Well, obviously, that will be the language of love, my beautiful language of Français," who else but France spoke up.

"Oh, b**** h****, it will obviously not be that," England bit back. "There is no way I am using that froggy language for anything."

"My dear rosbif, you cannot possibly mean that," the Frenchman said, acting hurt, "after all, you had no problem with it a few centuries ago."

"And how much did I speak back then, frog?"

France just tossed his hair, looking remarkably like a girl as he did. "It is still better than your unrefined language."

Before England could blow up again, Switzerland yelled, "Both of you shut up! Here's what we will do: everyone take a sheet of paper and write what languages you can read or write. We will pick what language will be the official written based on that."

Everyone did as he instructed, with a surprising lack of complaining. Lukas debated on whether he should put both of the different forms of Norwegian, then decided that he really didn't want to explain and just put Norsk. He also wrote down Icelandic, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and Faroese, leaving out Danish, French, and Russian because he really didn't want to have to write everything in those languages. The Norwegian snuck a glance at Eiríkur's paper, seeing a similar list to his.

Switzerland walked out of the room to find an impartial judge while talking started up again. Or rather, France, Ireland, and America decided to gang up on England. Lukas tried to figure out why seeing him irritated was so entertaining. Was it the accent? Or maybe it was because he got annoyed over the tiniest things?

While he was musing over this, Switzerland came back in and cleared his throat very loudly. When England finally calmed down, he announced, "I got Bob, the clerk-"

"You seriously have a clerk named Bob?" America asked, disbelieving.

The neutral nation closed his eyes as if trying to keep himself from shooting him. "He tallied up the results and English won."

Lukas was pretty sure that France started crying at this point, babbling something in French he was pretty sure was, "How could they not choose my beautiful language? How could they choose that unrefined, barbarian language?" Monaco just rolled her eyes at his dramatics while England glared at his rival.

As you could probably guess, the meeting went downhill from there.


About an hour later, they finally stopped the meeting after Switzerland kicked England and France out of the hotel and told them to come back after they had gotten the murderous intent out of their systems.

Eiríkur yawned as he walked into their room. Lukas noticed and said, "You took a nap for an hour and a half earlier. How are you so tired?"

"Because I am. Now shut up and let me sleep."

Before he could crawl into the blankets, Lukas grabbed the blankets. "Get ready for bed, and then you can hog the blankets."

Eiríkur glared at his brother, but still stomped over to his suitcase and yanked out his nightclothes, going into the bathroom to change. Lukas shook his head and pulled his on in the room itself.

Eiríkur came out a couple minutes later when Lukas was already curled up in the bed. He laid down on the other side before asking, "Why does everyone have to fight?"

Lukas looked over at his brother, seeing head buried in the pillow. "I wish I knew why, lillebror. I really wish I knew."

Eiríkur scooched closer to his brother, who hugged him, regretting how the younger nation had been exposed to the world he had tried to keep him from.


Translations that aren't obvious:

Guten tag (German)- hello or good day or something like that.

Sasana (Irish (yes, this is a separate language))- England

Norsk- Norwegian for Norwegian (the language- a person is 'Nordmann' I believe)

Rosbif (French)- roast beef

Other Notes:

France and Monaco are siblings- I just threw that in there. Whether or not they are actual blood siblings or just say they are is up to you.

Certain British curse words are crossed out- mostly because I don't curse and have recently found out they're a bit more violent there than Americans realize. And the mental scene of England getting bleeped out every other word is hilarious to me.

The Scottish fry everything- I'm not joking. There is apparently a such thing as fried haggis. It's times like these I regret being a fourth Scotish...

America randomly introduces himself to everyone- Take a good look at him and tell me he wouldn't. Also, just saying, this won't be the last you'll see of him. I'll try to keep a bunch of nationalism from creeping in, though.

Faroese- yes, this is also a language. I'm not sure if any translators actually offer this as an option, though.

Rosbif and Frog- Fun fact, during WWI, the French called British trenches 'Rosbif Land' and the British called French trenches 'Frog Land'. Even when they were on the same side they still made fun of each other.

So, this was a somewhat humerous chapter with a bit of mood whiplash at the end. I kind of regret that ending, but can't think of a good reason to get rid of it.

Also not shown: Another day where Switzerland kicks not only England and France out but also Australia for somehow smuggling in his demonic koala and daring Italy to pet it, Romano starts yelling at Spain (but what else is new), and America annoys everyone.

Next chapter: Lukas decides to build a house on Jan Mayen because no one would ever even think to look for him there. Eiríkur gets wind of this and joins in.